


Arcades and non-dates

by Kyuketsuki_of_Gallifrey



Series: Finding A Way Home One-shots and Outtakes [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Arcades, Competitive Streak, Drarry, M/M, Pining, learning new (muggle) things, minimal angst but definitely still some angst, non-dates, of course Draco is good at DDR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:40:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29882640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyuketsuki_of_Gallifrey/pseuds/Kyuketsuki_of_Gallifrey
Summary: Draco and Harry have reached an arrangement: Draco teaches Harry the subtle nuances and complex intricacies of pureblood culture that he didn't learn at Hogwarts. They decided to meet daily- pureblood tutoring one day, getting to know one another, and doing something fun the next. This is one out of a very long string of self-proclaimed non-dates.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: Finding A Way Home One-shots and Outtakes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930117
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	Arcades and non-dates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlexClio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexClio/gifts).



> Hello, my lovely readers! This is one of the non-dates that happens in between the beach party and purging the Manor in Finding a Way Home. I promised you I'd write a few of their non-dates, this is the first delivery of many for that promise! I hope you enjoy it!   
> As always, a loving shoutout to my wonderful darling AlexClio for being the best beta reader of all time!  
> Happy reading!

Brilliant sunlight heralded a perfect Saturday morning. It was already much too hot outside, but from the safety of the air-conditioned cafe, Draco found he could appreciate the beauty of it. He waited patiently for Harry to show up, trying to convince himself that the fluttering in his stomach wasn’t anticipation for seeing the Boy Who Lived. He was simply eager to have an enjoyable day off. When Harry walked into the coffee shop, however, all notions of Harry not being the highlight of his day went out the window. His heart leaped in his chest and his stomach felt like it had done a rather impressive backflip when Harry made directly for their usual table. 

“Hey.” Harry smiled as he sat down.

“You’re early for once.” Draco hoped Harry couldn’t hear just how pleased he was by this.

“I woke up on time for once.” Harry shrugged.

“That must have been incredibly difficult for you.” Draco rolled his eyes. “Here, I got you this.” Draco pushed the frozen coffee across the table, hoping he hadn’t overstepped the unspoken boundaries that existed between them.

“Thank you.” Harry took a tentative sip and Draco was gratified at the delighted expression that graced Harry’s face. “It’s fantastic.”

“They call it a Zebra Mocha. It has white chocolate and dark chocolate in it so I figured it was right up your alley.” Draco smirked.

“You know me so well.” Harry laughed and Draco felt a thrill rush through him at his words. 

“I’m trying to.” He admitted before he could stop himself.

They exchanged idle chit chat while they drank their coffee and Draco marveled, not for the first time, at how absurdly easy it was to talk to Harry. He could have never imagined exchanging such easy banter back at Hogwarts. They had seemed too far apart, impossibly separated by the war. 

“Alright, Potter. It’s our fun day, where do you want to go?” Draco tried to keep the excited expectation out of his voice as they left the cafe together.

They had fallen into a pattern of studying pureblood traditions and customs one day and doing something relaxing or fun the next. Seeing Harry every day for almost two weeks was certainly not helping him get a grip on his unruly feelings for him. Harry seemed to be enjoying their time together, though, so Draco felt like it might be permissible. What did it matter that his heart would get ripped to shreds when this was all over as long as he could make Harry smile?

Merlin, he sounded like a lovesick martyr even in his own head. He really needed to get his shite together. 

“We could go to an arcade.” Harry shrugged.

“What’s an arcade?” He asked skeptically.

“Er, it’s sort of this public game center with lots of different things, like video games and skee ball and pinball machines.”

Draco looked at him for a very long moment. When he didn’t offer up any type of additional explanation he shook his head.

“It’s like you’re speaking an entirely different language.”

“Oh, right. I guess that is kind of more of a muggle thing.” Harry flushed. “We don’t have to do that if you’d rather do something else.”

“No, no. Now you’ve sparked my curiosity.” Draco grinned. “Lead the way to this muggle marvel of yours.”

It turned out that an arcade was a dimly lit space overrun with kids and young adults screaming and laughing. Their shouts of joy and amusement only added to the cacophony of strange music and loud clacking of games in progress at every turn. Harry seemed to know exactly where he was going and led Draco straight to a blessedly less crowded alley of long sloping table-like structures that were only about knee-height. 

“This is one of the easiest arcade games ever, but it can also be a lot of fun.” Harry grinned, walking over to a machine and changing a muggle banknote for a handful of something that looked like fake galleons. 

“What are those?” Draco couldn’t quell his curiosity.

“These are tokens. All of the games here run off of tokens.” He demonstrated by sliding a token into a black slot that was set into the end of the sloping tables. Something inside the table clicked and suddenly about a dozen white balls filled a hollow pit at the end of the table. “Some games take more tokens than others, but these change machines are strategically placed all over the arcade so you can always buy more.”

“It seems unnecessarily complicated, why not just use muggle coins?” Draco took the token Harry was offering and inspected it. It was thin and cold to the touch. One side was stamped with the name of the arcade and the other side was stamped with writing declaring it to be ‘one token’. 

“Good question! I don’t know, actually.” Harry looked delightfully intrigued. “It’s just always been that way.”

“Alright.” Draco shrugged, handing the token back. “Now what is the point of this...game?”

“You roll the balls up the ramp and try to get it into the highest-scoring white circle. The higher the score, the more tickets you earn.”

“Tickets?” Draco felt slightly overwhelmed. It was an awful lot of nonsense just for a bit of fun.

“Yeah, they dispense out of here when you're done playing the game.” Harry pointed to a horizontal slot that was right beneath the vertical slot Harry had pushed the token into. “Every game will give you tickets if you win, then when you’re ready to leave you take all of your tickets to the front counter and trade them in for a prize.”

“Ok.” He frowned. “I think I have it down. Muggle money for tokens, tokens for balls, balls for tickets, and tickets for prizes?”

“Exactly!" Harry grinned. "You don’t have to worry about any of that though, I can handle that part. You just have fun.” 

“Right.” Draco picked up one of the white balls, weighing it in his hands and exploring the odd texture. “So you just roll the ball up the table? That’s it?”

“That’s it.” Harry confirmed, grabbing a ball of his own to demonstrate. He flicked his wrist and sent the white orb racing up the incline. It bounced over the lip at the top and dropped into one of the small circles in the upper left corner with the number one hundred on it. The table made a strange dinging noise and Harry smiled. “You try.”

“This seems too easy.” Draco noted.

“Care to bet on it, then?” Harry challenged with a smirk.

“Why not?” Draco struggled to banish thoughts of wagering impossible things like the loser having to kiss the winner. “What are we betting?”

“Whoever scores the most points keeps the tickets?” Harry offered.

“You’re on.” Draco rolled the ball up the table and was dismayed when it fell into the ten-point circle. 

He narrowed his eyes at Harry when something that suspiciously sounded like a snort of laughter escaped his lips. 

“Here,” Harry picked up another ball. “You have to put a little more power behind it to get to the higher numbers.” He released the ball with a flourish and it bounced into the fifty-point hole. 

Draco frowned and tried again, forcefully sending the ball up the incline. Apparently, it was too much power because the ball bypassed the circles and fell behind the scoreboard. He huffed in annoyance. 

“It’s a delicate balance.” Harry chuckled, sending another ball into a high-scoring circle with ease. 

They played two games before Draco determined that he simply sucked at skee ball. Harry was a rather gracious winner and assured him that everyone was just as bad on their first go. They meandered over to something Harry called an air hockey table. Draco didn’t take a lot of convincing to try this game out and Harry was soon feeding two tokens into the table with relish. When the table began to hum Draco could feel cold air rising from the hundreds of tiny little holes on the table’s surface and ran his hand across it curiously. Harry handed him a heavy rubber disk with a round handle in the middle.

“This is your mallet, you use this to hit the puck towards my goal slot and I try to block it and hit it back towards your goal slot. You can’t hit the puck once it’s on my side of the table, but that’s just about the only rule. The first one to seven wins.” Harry’s eyes were practically glowing with excitement.

“Same terms as before?” Draco grinned. Harry’s child-like wonder was infectious. 

“You are so on.” Harry laughed, pulling the puck out of his end of the table and placing it on top. “Ready, Malfoy?”

“Bring it on, Potter.” 

Draco was much better at air hockey than he was at skee ball. For a long while, they seemed to be evenly matched and the score hovered at 4-4. After Harry sank another goal, however, Draco felt he had the game pretty well figured out. It was a combination of strategy, luck, and knowing your opponent. He considered these factors before his serve and was rewarded with an instant goal. Harry managed to score once more before Draco took two more points and won the game. 

“Double or nothing?” Harry challenged, already pulling out more tokens. “Winner takes all?”

“I’ll take those odds.” Draco smirked.

They ended up playing two more games before moving on. Draco had won both times and was feeling a little smug. When Harry brought him over to a strange box with moving pictures and funny music he lost some of his confidence. Harry explained very patiently what video games were and how they worked before pulling a bright red wand-like object out of its slot and handing it to Draco. He informed him that the plastic thing was called a gun and that to use it he needed to click the small movable piece called the trigger. When Draco felt comfortable working the gun Harry put the required tokens into the machine and told him to shoot any animal that came across the screen. During the first half of the game, Draco failed miserably. Once he got the hang of it, however, his score improved drastically. When the game was over Draco immediately demanded they play again and Harry was more than happy to comply. After three more games, they decided to call it quits because they were too evenly matched to declare a true victor. A strange sense of contentment settled over him as Harry towed him eagerly across the arcade and Draco was mildly surprised to discover that he was genuinely having fun- not just because Harry was having fun, but actually enjoying himself for the first time in years. 

They tried out what Harry called a racing game next. These controls were much harder to use than the shooting game, but he gave it his best go anyway. Draco had a difficult time staying on course and kept crashing into the sides. At one point he even ran into Harry and knocked him off the track with him, but Harry still beat him on both games. He found that he didn’t mind losing to Harry, he was just happy to be playing and sharing something so trivial and simplistic with him. Harry showed him how to play foosball, at which he managed a narrow victory, and Harry helped him play single-player video games like Pac-man, Galaga, and Frogger. When their interest in the video games waned Harry suggested a couple of rounds of pinball. Draco quickly discovered that he did not enjoy the noisy contraption and decided to just watch Harry play.

Harry’s face was set with determination as he jabbed the buttons on the side of the machine to keep the tiny silver ball in play. It was adorable. Draco had to admit Harry was rather good at this particular game. Well, to be entirely fair, Harry had been good at all of the games they had played. Draco smiled as a rare feeling of contentment settled over him. He had a feeling he would remember the laughter they shared as they raced their electronic cars, each one intentionally trying to sabotage the other by pushing them in the shoulder or grabbing at the other’s controls, the look of consternation on Harry’s face when Draco had beaten him repeatedly at air hockey, and the verbal abuse they hurled at each other to try and throw the other off their game during the hunting simulation for years to come. Draco had to hand it to Harry, going to the arcade had been a great idea. Draco let his mind wander until movement caught his attention. Two people were dancing on top of a glowing platform that kept flashing different colors and Draco was mesmerized. It was some sort of game- a dancing game! He watched the two teenagers with interest, noting the peculiar dance style the game seemed to require. It looked like a lot of fun. He scarcely noticed when the incessant dinging of the silver ball game stopped and almost jumped out of his skin when Harry’s voice sounded behind him.

“You want to go play DDR when they’re done?”

“Salazar, don’t do that!” He gasped, shooting the Gryffindor a fond glare.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to sneak up on you.” Harry tried not to laugh. 

“Did you win?” Draco elected to ignore the insincere apology. 

“I got a new high score.” Harry looked rather pleased with himself so Draco assumed that meant yes.

“Nice.”

“So do you?” Harry slipped his hands into his back pockets and took a casual step closer.

“Do I what?” Draco was momentarily stunned by Harry’s sudden proximity

“Want to play DDR?” Harry nodded towards the teenagers who were still jumping around and laughing.

“Oh, is that what it’s called?” Draco turned back to watch them again. “Yes, I would like to try playing.”

“I think I have just enough tokens left.” Harry started walking towards it and Draco followed.

It looked like even more fun up close. Draco was delighted to discover the flashing parts of the platform had arrows and such on them. It seemed that the main objective was to step on the lit-up squares at the right time. The different squares and flashing colors seemed to each correspond to a different type of note. By the time the teenagers had finished their round Draco felt he had a basic understanding of how to play. They wished Harry and Draco luck before letting them take over and disappeared into another part of the arcade. 

Harry took over as Player 1 and started scrolling through the song selections while he tried to explain the rules.

“The arrows will scroll up the screen and when it reaches the top you step on the corresponding arrow on the platform.” Harry fiddled with the controls.

“Sounds simple enough.” Draco smirked. “Anything else I should know?”

“Er, I haven’t actually played this before. Dancing isn’t really my thing, so your guess is as good as mine.” Harry blushed as he decided on a song.

“This should be fun.” Draco took his place as Player 2 excitedly as the game started counting down to start the song.

It was harder than it looked when he was watching the girls, but Draco caught on easily enough. It was like a more intense form of dance lessons, but instead of a grumpy instructor criticizing his every move he had a machine shouting praises at him. It was exhilarating. When he glanced over at Harry during a brief pause in the flashing arrows he cracked up laughing. Harry was frowning angrily at the screen and moving like his limbs weighed a ton. 

“How can you possibly be this bad at dancing, Potter? Just follow the arrows!” He teased.

“How can you possibly be this good when it’s the first time you’ve played?” Harry huffed back. 

“This is not my first time dancing.” Draco shot back, picking back up seamlessly with the beat of the song while Harry scrambled to keep up.

When the song was over Draco didn’t even bother to check the scores, he just handed Harry all of his tickets.

“What’s this for? I lost.” Harry looked at him in confusion as they stepped off the platform.

“True, but you ultimately won. This was the most fun I’ve had in ages.” Draco grinned. “Now, we’re out of tokens and I’m starving. Do you want to grab some lunch?”

“That sounds like a great idea.” Harry smiled.

Draco watched on in interest as Harry traded their tickets for a strange little thing Harry called a slinky and marveled at the odd plastic contraption as they stepped out into the blinding midday sun. Draco decided he quite liked arcades.


End file.
